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Same coffee, new receding hairline

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Last week, Alex posted the trailer for The Town, a movie that looks like this: guns! Charlestown! Jon Hamm! The dude from The Hurt Locker! Jon Hamm! Fenway Park! Stubble! Jon Goddamn Hamm!

There’s a new Affleck trailer up, and while it’s not as exciting as the one for The Town, it’s certainly compelling. First of all, the cast for The Company Men includes Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Craig T. “Coach” Nelson, Rosemarie DeWitt (from Mad Men and Rachel Getting Married), Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, and Kingston’s own Chris Cooper. Hot damn!

This trailer has many highlights. Chief among them is this fact: the movie includes a scene in which Affleck, recently fired from a big corporation job, brings coffee for his colleagues on a construction site. Allow me to repeat that: In this movie, Ben Affleck’s character works on a construction site, and furthermore, in this movie, Ben Affleck brings coffee for others. Oh. My. God.

Affleck with coffee 1

1997

Ben Affleck 2

2010

Another notable similarity to our Favorite Movie Of All Time: This movie has one egregiously terrible Boston accent. One might even go so far that, judging from the way he says “cahptenter” as if Katharine Hepburn on This Old House, Kevin Costner is the new Robin Williams. Congratulations, Costner; it looks like you’ve really out-Costnered yourself this time.

There’s a new gritty town, er, in town

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Move over Southie and Dorchester… there’s a new candidate for “one of the toughest neighborhoods in all of Boston… no place for the weak or innocent.

A one square mile neighborhood called… Charlestown!!

I incidentally did a quick Google search of Charlestown and “bank robberies” and came up with this article about a series of robberies in Charleston, Summerville, and Dorchester. Apparently there’s a parallel universe of Boston neighborhoods in South Carolina, slightly misspelled. I wonder if they each have a Boylston Street?

Read all about the filming of The Town in Harvard Square, right here in a Blog Will Hunting post from last winter.

Sounds a lot like the plot of Good Will Hunting

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

The therapy scene from the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly comedy Step Brothers; it sounds a lot like Good Will Hunting.

English as a Second Language

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Good Will Hunting v. Community

NBC’s Community riffed on Good Will Hunting this week.

How do you like them bananas??

Friday, April 9th, 2010

GET IT??  Bananas!

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Are Not Strangers…

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

But this is too Bostony to pass up posting.

If you haven’t seen The Super Secret Project‘s “Granite State of Mind” New Hampshire tribute (and Jay-Z send-up), go do that, quick, because it’s amazing. Then check out their recreation of the Perfect Strangers opening, Boston-style…. (They also did the Good Will Hunting Louder “remake” we posted a while back.)

Next up, maybe they can do Step by Step, but on the Green Line instead of a roller coaster?  Terrifying!

Directly on its behalf.

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Part of the legacy of Good Will Hunting is that a vast number of auditions and acting exercises have used its script as source material.  The web is full of Good Will Hunting scenes recreated, mostly with fairly appalling results.  If you have any doubt that Damon and Affleck (and even Williams) excel in this film, spending a few minutes on YouTube with amateur Will Huntings may change your mind.

The following scenes make some interesting choices interpreting a moment between Will and Skylar.  These performances confirm that it may be impossible to deliver the line “on behalf of my wiener” with any actorly dignity.  I’m not sure how Damon did it.


Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are handsome men.

Friday, March 12th, 2010

At least, Jimmy Kimmel thinks so.